Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Play Dough!

Create some wild and wonderful patterned, sparkly and textured play dough to create marvellous candies and sweets in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory imaginary play!

This was totally inspired by Cakie who asked me “can we please make some Willy Wonka play dough Mummy?!” She’s absolutely in love with the 1970s version of this movie (and I can’t wait to read her the book when she’s older!) and talks about it a lot at the moment.

Both the girls helped me to make a double batch of oursuper-easy, no-cook play dough(it takes only 4 minutes!) Then we divided it up and added various colours using 2 tsps of bright powder paint for each. To two of the lumps of dough we added a few tablespoons of cocoa powder (and a few drops extra water) to make chocolate scented dough. (Alternatively you can see our real chocolate play dough recipe here.)

To create some fun effects I simply added a few extra elements. You could be hugely creative with these! I added some acrylic crystals and strawberry flavouring to make “Strawberry Whiffle“, peppermint flavouring and glitter to create “Mint Fizzwangler“, gold glitter to the chocolate dough to make “Chocolate Glitter-Ripple“, brown marker pen drawn in straight lines to more chocolate dough to make “Toffee Scrumdidiliumptious“, blue and purple marker pen dots to create “Blueberry Snozztastic” and flower print stamps with vanilla essence to make “Golden Poppernickel!”

These were SO much fun to make and if I’d had more dough we would have made so many more weird and whacky combinations! I’m looking forward to next time 🙂

We raided our play dough tool kit supplies and found pom poms, cut straws, cut BBQ skewers (sharp ends cut off), Hama beads, acrylic crystal gems, lolly sticks and coloured chips. These were for adding embellishments and more whacky features to any sweetie creations they would make.

And here are some of our fun creations! I particularly love the Everlasting Gobstoppers (top right corner) inspired directly from the movie, as well as the “swizzwingers” (named by Cakie!) which apparently “go into your mouth and out again and then make your tummy feel all lovely inside.” I’d like to try those for sure!

Cakie was especially interested in making lollipops and we worked together to layer three colours on top of each other and roll them up into a sausage shape.

She then chopped them into discs and flattened them with her palm, sticking them onto the BBQ skewers to finish them off!

They decorated the lollies and Cakie got a little jug to display them in at her “chocolate factory” (our favourite toy market stall!)

They filled up the crates and cups with all their creations and I was ordered to act out her favourite parts of the story as Mr Willy Wonka. Cakie was Charlie and poor Pop got assigned the role of an Oompa Loompa (she does love to sing and dance along with them!)

And because it was another rainy day and we were all a bit poorly, we decided to switch on the actual DVD and play along while we watched it. Yes, we enjoy tv and have no problem allowing our kids to watch some favourites, even playing and creating while we do so sometimes. All things in moderation!

Here are some delicious golden chocolate bubble milkshakes which make you feel sweet and happy!

I just loved the imaginative ideas and rich, story-based vocabulary that was being used during this play time. Imaginative play based on real stories creates a context-rich, meaningful starting point for young children and can consolidate so many early literacy and creative skills during play.

Further play prompts:

what shall we make together? do you remember any of the candies/sweeties from the story?

what does this dough look like? smell like? remind you of?

what could this sweetie do? will it make us fly? giggle? hot? cold? is it fizzy? sour? sweet?

take on a character and act out parts of the story in role, altering voices and language as you play

shall we make a shop to sell these in? let’s make price tags, recipts, signs etc

literacy: descriptive language e.g. bumpy, lumpy, spiky, rough, smooth, soft, shiny etc, use story-telling language and increase vocabulary with descriptive terms such as fizzy, sour, sweet etc Take on a character and remain in role during play

Wow this is totally totally gorgeous – I too loved that film as a child. What a fanatic way to develop imagination and creativity. I love Cakie’s description of her sweets and what they do- soooo cute. If The Fairy wasn’t at pre school today I think we’d be playing sweetie shops this afternoon!

This is my new favorite post of yours!! Absolutely fantastic. I just introduced my girls to Willy Wonka last week and they were spellbound…they would adore this. Thank you so much for another wonderful idea!!

I absolutely love these ideas and will be creating some with the boys in the holidays for sure! I have an empty chocolate tray at the ready…hmmm, maybe I should really empty some more choc trays in preparation 😉 Thanks for the inspiration!

I think these are lovely! I have a question for you, in the photos it appears that you let the playdough dry out in these shapes. I am wondering what you do with them when it is time to move on? This is always a struggle for me with imaginative play creations, I hate throwing them away but we have such a small house that we just can’t keep things around for long periods of time. I always feel guilty tossing and wonder how other moms deal with this challenge. Thanks!

In the non cook playdough I have used paints. They are bright and non toxic . I have created other bright colours by mixing 2 colours together. Someone else may know of another way of getting those bright colours …good luck .